#466 - ERWAN BOUROULLEC, Founder of Erwan Bouroullec Studio
SUMMARY
This week David and Marina of FAME Architecture & Design are joined by Erwan Bouroullec, founder of Erwan Bouroullec Studio. The three discussed Erwan’s childhood influences, the journey and challenges of becoming an artist, artist vs designer, his design process & philosophy, standard vs unique production, AI in design, architects as perfectionists, Erwan’s studio operations, his favorite projects, and more. Enjoy!
ABOUT ERWAN
Erwan Bouroullec, born in 1976, has practiced industrial and non-industrial product design for over 25 years. His work spans objects, furniture, and interiors for both large organizations and smaller companies. For much of his career, he collaborated with his brother Ronan at Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec studio, though they have since pursued independent paths. Based in Paris, where his studio is located, he also spends time in Burgundy, which serves as both a personal retreat and a workspace.
TIMESTAMPS
(00:00) Erwan's childhood influences.
(07:48) Journey of becoming an artist.
(17:23) Challenge of being an artist.
(20:43) Artist vs Designer.
“Culture is something which is much more complicated than a piece of art in a way. Everything that surrounds it is very important [because there’s a need] for it to be performative. If we as the interior architect, the designer, or the graphic designer mess up a job, there are many things that won't be working.” (24:28)
(26:50) Reading.
(30:02) Design process & philosophy.
“I think [we need to] think more about the method. I don't exactly know what's going to be the end result after the method, but I'm trying a lot of different things. All the production we’re facing are strictly similar. I’m doubting this is right, that at the end, everything becomes similar, similar, similar. Every product has to be similar by the millimeters. The color has to be exactly the same. Everything needs to look exactly like the picture you've seen. This thing is spread worldwide everywhere. I mean, it's totally crazy. My real goal would be to use some kind of randomness and coding and interweave it into production in a way.” (34:58)
(38:15) Standard vs unique production.
(45:11) AI in design.
“Maybe AI would help to creating some interesting complexity. I think it would be interesting to invent a little bit of this new language that would be taking the best of a very clean, radical architecture, but just give it some shapes that are a little bit less similar, rigid, and parallel.” (48:40)
(50:35) Architects perfectionist.
“Because if you want everything to be perfect, somehow you need to be able to describe what is perfect. It seems like we've got some difficulty to compute the complexity a little. Because I'm sure if you can draw some grids, then you could start pushing them a little or form it like it would be formed by the wind for example. [If you have all those tools, why not] play a little bit with data like you would play with clay in a way.” (51:29)
(53:15) Erwan's favorite project.
(01:06:14) Erwan's studio size & operations.
(01:16:38) Design philosophy.
“The mentality of the product designer is quite a cool one, because we try as much as possible to listen to everyone and to make the best solutions and the best compromise. It’s a balance. We can do things which are more popular because, yes, we still work in a world that you could compare slightly to fashion. Fashion has a kind of scale which is nothing like the world of proper radical contemporary design, but we still make some design which are made for the haute couture, which are not ready to wear collections.” (01:22:22)
(01:27:21) What project Erwan is working on.
